Companion Care
by Dances With Pandas
Summary: He has had many companions over the years but this one has always been his favourite. 101 can't be bothered with the wasteland anymore so he decides to stay in Megaton and have a pint.
1. Chapter 1

It's sad to see my companion this way. He lies on the couch, beside me, breathing deep, big brown eyes looking up at me. His cold, wet nose glistening as the flickers from the fire light up the room. He's fought with me all over the Wasteland but now we spend our time in Megaton, he has become comfortable with the casual days.

Getting old now, you see. Gone the sprightly beast of youth, the non-stop energy, the gay abandon with which he took to life and took life off others. Those powerful hind-quarters are not what they once were. He sighs. The top of his enormous head is coated with matted hair. He sighs again, scratches vigorously, grumbles.

"You wanna go for a walk, old fella?", I ask.

He looks at me. I know he understands but what normally has him up and circling like a lunatic, excited to be going outside like it's his first ever, leaves him stretched out on the floor. He turns on his side. Once lithe, now the belly is pronounced. He stretches.

"Walk?", I said, grabbing my 101 jump-suit and weapons.

Nothing. He grumbles again from that deep, barrelly chest, deep, resonating. He wheezes. I can't help but think of all the good times. Out exploring the Capital Wasteland. 'Get 'em!', I'd say and he'd leap forward ready to chase and maul and possibly hump whatever it was I was pointing at. Time waits for no man, nor beast. It catches up with us all. The cat strolls in, sniffs him, recoils as is the cats wont, but they are old friends and the feline sits next to him for a while, as if to say 'It'll be ok, I understand'.

I put down my book, blow out the candles and put on my jump-suit. I'm going out and he's coming with me. His life might be passing from autumn to winter but dammit I'm not going to let him fade away like this. The twilight of his existence will be something special, he's too much a part of me for anything else.

"Get up. Come on. Get up", I say. He groans again. Lies panting on the floor. "Come on. We're going out. You have no choice. Get up". This time he turns away from me. 'Leave me be', he's saying. 'I just want to lie here to wither in peace'. It's heartbreaking. A once proud beast reduced to this.

I won't let him wither though. I will make sure of it. I walk slowly over to him and look down. It's pitiful. He won't make eye contact. I'm not sure I could cope if he did. I pretend to walk away, I can sense him relax as he thinks I'm going without him, but quickly I turn and kick him as hard as I can in the balls.

"Come the fuck on, Jericho", I say. "We're going to Moriarty's for a pint and that's the end of it".

He gets up. Eventually.


	2. Chapter 2

"You know", said Jericho as we sat at the bar in Moriarty's Tavern last night, "I never liked my father. He was an awful man with about as much charm as a glittered turd. But you know what? He taught me a lesson I've never forgotten".

"What's that then?", I asked.

"When I was very young and had just started thieving from caravans, I got bullied in my first week by a chap called Bastard-Face. Big hairy beast he was, even at the same age as me. At the end of the week after I'd been wedgied, nipple twisted and just plain old pistol whipped I told my Dad thinking he'd do something about it. He just looked at me and said, 'You have to fight your own battles son. If someone hits you, hit them back twice as hard'. That's exactly what I did then and have done ever since. I'll admit that sometimes my response to being hit has been disproportionate, super-mutants pack some punch after all, but I've never had my cacks pulled up to ears again".

"That is a valuable lesson", I said.

"Funnily enough I can remember something similar", said Gob, a tendril of semi-crusted, luminous green snot hanging from his left nostril. "My father was a simple man and I mean that in the uncomplicated sense, he wasn't a window licker". He paused waiting for inevitable wise crack about things skipping a generation but we were supping from our pints and missed the window of opportunity. He went on, "He liked to read. When he came back from his job in the Pitt where he melted down metal for bullet casings, he'd sit in his chair in front of the fire, and for an hour he'd just read. His favourite book was The Fall by Albert Camus, and from that he taught me something valuable. He read the line to me. 'Son, always remember this. _Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day_. It resonated with me. Life is for living and living now. If you don't feel like washing, don't wash. If you want to wear the same skidmarked jocks for two weeks, then do it and care not for what other say. It has shaped my life".

"I'm not quite sure that's what Camus was getting at but fair enough", I said. "You've made it your own".

"Your old man was as literary as mine then", said Burke. "He was another bookworm but he'd read anything he could get his hands on. He didn't care what anyone thought. Some of his buddies used to mock him for being lowbrow, he'd just laugh them off. He used to quote Bertolt Brecht at me – 'Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste' and at the end of the day that's spot on. 'To each his own and a little of what you fancy' was another one. I don't care if people laugh at me because I like James Patterson books. I am who I am, I like what I like and that's it. Point, mock, make snide comments all you like, I could not care less".

"I like a man who doesn't give a shit about what others think", said Moriarity. "I never had a son, not that I know of anyway, but if I had I'd have given words which struck a chord with me when I went through my Tennessee Williams phase. 'Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else'. How could you not be moved by that? How can anyone read that and not be humbled by the insignificance of life? Your voyages are barely a ripple on the surface of the pond of life … and I know the irony of it, me having not left this bar since nineteen-aught, but sometimes I wish I'd wandered a bit more. But here we are. No regrets".

"What about you, 101?", said Jericho. "Anything you can remember your father telling you that's stood the test of time?"

"Oh God yeah. Even all these years later it's as fresh in my mind as a footprint in the snow. It remains etched in my brain, gilded calligraphic script, unforgettable even if I wanted to. Yet I never want to, never will want to. I knew the moment I heard it and experienced it that it was something special, something that would change my life for the better, just like the things you learned from your fathers. Wisdom truly comes with age".

"So, what was it?", asked Moriarity.

"Always have your gin and tonic with a slice of orange".


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

We had a fundraiser in Moriarty's last night for the 'Children of Atom'.

'Caps for Atoms' was a resounding success. Each person had to get up and rant about something they disliked intensely.

Jericho's prolonged tirade about why is it when you get an itchy eye and you rub it you enter into a vicious circle of rub, relief, worse itch, rub, relief, worse itch. He's had that poxy itchy eye all day and it's annoying the fuck out of me and him.

"Why can't the itch just go away like it does on nearly every other part of your body?"

Billy Creel spoke about how he shaved his face and his head with a clippers. He looked like a spacehopper with all over stubble.

"I've still got a hankering for some more shaving though", he said.

"I might shave one of my legs and see how long it takes to grow back. I would shave my ass but I don't have all day."

Nova brought up a fair point about cannibals.

"You know the way some people like giant ant meat but don't like mole rat meat, are there some Waste-land cannibals who just don't like the taste of certain flesh?"

Pondering the vampires north of us she continued.

"Or would they prefer a nice, lean person to an overweight one who would have lots of fat on their meat?"

Even Mr. Burke had a go, considering Megaton to convey too strong a negative image he wanted to rebrand the city.

"Firstly, the name", he said.

"We need to convey a positive, bright outlook for the city. 'Awesome City' ticks all the right boxes. Primarily, it is a city. At the moment 'Megaton' has too many negatives. Nobody wants to be the one to put the mega in Megaton."

Other names considered were Coolland, but potential hostile action from 'Kool' and his bandit gang put paid to that, MegaLand evoked images of giant robots and oversized jungle animals and with the Wasteland the way it was, well nobody wanted that inside the city walls.

My own meager rant was about what a complete bastard my Father was and if the Enclave hadn't killed him I would've loved nothing more than to wonder-glue him to a braham and have it aimlessly wander the Wasteland.

In the end we raised a good old sum of caps which Moriarty put in a pint glass behind the bar before doing his bit about how he hated fundraisers. As such, he confiscated the caps to help pay for the urinal Jericho cracked when he passed out in the toilet last week.

Hey, needs must.


	4. Chapter 4

Last night as Moriarty's was closing he asked myself and Jericho to stay behind.

"Can I stay too, Moriarty?", asked Gob. "I'd love to be part of the gang".

"Fuck off, Gob, before I pull your spleen out of your ass".

He fucked off.

"So what's up?", I said.

"Have a drink, on me", said Moriarty, pulling out a bottle of good stuff from beneath the counter. He poured us all a shot. I looked at Jericho. He looked at me. Moriarty giving drinks away. For free. And good ones. Not even the ones from the good bottle that he'd filled up with water-downed crap Scotch.

"On me. Cheers lads", he said. We raised and clinked our glasses and drank. Liquid fire. It was delicious.

"So what's on your mind, Moriarty?"

"Look", he said. "I've been thinking about what's going to happen to this place when I'm not here".

"When you're not here?", I laughed. "Moriarty, you haven't had a day off in 8 years. And that time was because you had a heart attack. And even then you went to work. It was the brain haemorrhage and subsequent pulmonary embolism that made you reluctantly close the doors for one day."

"I don't mean taking time off to do stupid things like go on holidays or read books or meet people. I mean when I'm gone gone. Dead. Like Three Dog's career, dead. I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that I'm not getting any younger".

"None of us are", said Jericho.

"Well I'm a good bit older than you two to start off with, well maybe not you Jericho but a man has to make a plan".

"And?"

"When I die I want to be cremated".

"That seems reasonable".

"And then I want my ashes blown into the face of Three Dog so he inhales as much of me as possible. I'm gonna fuck that little prick up from the inside. I'm going to give him fifty different types of cancer nobody's ever even heard of before".

"Fantastic".

"You wouldn't believe what it's like 101, I have to listen to him every day, every God damned day on this radio. The same snide, condescending, smug, unhumourous voice just going on and on and on."

"Where do we come in?"

"I'm leaving the bar to you both. A 50-50 share. Don't change a fucking thing. No being nice to customers. No cleaning up unless you really have to, like blood and brains and that juice that comes out of peoples eyes. No not ripping off strangers or Billy Creel and Lucy West, make sure old Nathaniel and his dog get a free round at least twice a week and, most importantly of all, make sure you keep disposing 'things' in the eternal kiln out the back. It's been going since 2253 without fail. If it goes out I'll haunt the living shit out of you both. Believe me I'll find a way".

"We believe you", I said. "Trust me".

"I have hired the Stahl's club for the funeral. I'm not a religious man, as you know, so the church can go fuck themselves but I want…".

"The Stahl's club?"

"It's central. Don't read any more into it. And I want you to invite the following people", he said handing over a list. We read it. Dumbstruck.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive".

"Really?"

"Yes, really".

"And even though you have no religious convictions you want Cromwell and the Children of Atom to preach mass in Stahl's club"

"Absolutely."

"So, let me get this straight", said Jericho. "Your funeral, instead of being held here, your bar, as a celebration of a quite wonderful life, is to be held in the Stahl's club across town".

"It is".

"And rather than just the people who knew you best, your loyal and always respectfully afraid of you customers, you want me to invite Andy Stahl, Deputy Steel, Doc Church, Jenny Stahl, Leo Stahl, Lucas Simms, Rory Maclaren, Stockholm, Deputy Weld and Wadsworth."

"Correct".

"Why?", I asked.

"Because", said Moriarty, holding up a mini-nuke, "that's where you're going to cremate me".


	5. Chapter 5

"101", said Jericho in Moriarty's Tavern, "I've got to the age I am, an age I won't disclose as I know the minute I do that bloody pip-boy will send you on a new quest that will no doubt involve a suicide mission and my gruesome death."

The pip boy powered up for the first time in seven years, with a familiar static echo.

"Don't tell me, it's a new quest?"

"That's a bit unfair."

"Is it?", he barked. "What happened to Dogmeat?"

"He was abducted by aliens."

"And what happened to Charon?"

"A super-mutant behemmoth landed on top of him after I blew it up with a mini-nuke".

"And what happened to Butch?"

"He very sadly, accidentally, brutally cut his own head off while giving himself a hair cut."

"And what happened to RL-3?"

"A very nasty bathing accident."

"You see the point I'm getting at, your companions haven't exactly had the best of luck in your company."

"Well you're going to be fine Jericho", I reassured him.

"And what makes you so sure?"

"Because you're too ugly to die Jericho, in fact if you were lying on a beach a herd of mole-rats would try to bury you."

"Quit stalling 101."

"Alright", I replied. "It's not a new quest…"

"Except it is a new quest isn't it, it's a new quest about my age."

"No."

"No? Don't humour me 101. I'll punch you right in the testicles if you do."

"It's picking up a Brotherhood of Steel radio message, signal looks like it belongs to the Outcasts. It's not that far, Jericho and besides, we are running low on psycho."

"I think I have one more journey left in me, Kid."

By that afternoon Jericho was dead.

Defender Morrill steps over Jericho's remains, the plasma fused bio matter that was once my companion's body rests in a large pile of green ashes. His Chinese assault rifle is two feet from whats left of his right arm.

The attacker, my nemesis, my enemy, comes over, asks if I'm all right. I can't see his face but his tone says he's smirking. 'You won't break me', I tell him, teeth gritted as waves of torment shoot from my waist up. He laughs, 'you're probably right' he says toying with the power-fist he used to cripple me 'but I don't need you broken'.

He is crowded out, other outcasts observe me through their darkened visors. I see him talking to the one who is successfully manipulated my pip-boy to open the storage bay. Not all of the Outcasts are happy about what happened but technology comes first to them. The young engineer is the most junior of the group. He might be crying under his visor. I can't tell. He can't look at me. I don't blame him. Who wants to look at somebody whose limp body is crumpled awkwardly on the ground? The novelty of that gets old very quickly.

It is hard to describe how it feels when they straighten my legs, when they correct my posture and lower me into the VR machine, so very carefully to try and minimise the discomfort. They are so careful, so gentle, unknowing that I can't feel my legs anyway. They straighten my arms and restrict them with the machine's bolts. Then they slam the capsule lid down as fast as they can. I'm now using the machine's oxygen supply and soon it all becomes a blur.

I realise I'm stuck in the VR machine, I realise from the lights that the combat programme is still offline but the enviromental controls are still functioning. My body is racked, shaking, I'm cold and I would give anything to make this pain go away. Count backwards says the speaker system, Morrill's voice is barking the command at me. I don't but the room turns black and I am unconscious.

When I wake I can hear the white noise of the humming machine's power system. The bustle of the Outcasts' power armour is long gone, forgotten to time, the empty corridors of the forgotten facility have no life except mine.

And just like that I am snapped back to reality as the generator's batteries kick in again to recharge. I have realised the true horror of my faith for some time now. My back has not healed and I remember where I am and how long I've been here and I think back to that day when I was with Jericho. That day I would have given anything to rid myself of the agony of my broken back, now I realise how trite that was. Now I really would give anything to feel that pain. The crack and the snap, the cold, the dust, the numbness, the tenderness as the bruising spread up my chest as far as the bottom of my ribcage. If given the choice between nothing and pain I will choose pain every time because now I feel nothing. I have felt nothing for almost fifteen years. I am still in the VR machine. I've been here since the Outcast's crippled me, since they killed Jericho. I cannot move or speak or communicate with anyone because not only is there no one there, even if there was they would think I'm brain dead. No one realises I can hear every hum and sound inside the VR capsule. They wouldn't know that my mind has not suffered the same fate as my body. By the timing of the VR machine's daily battery recharge I have been like this for five thousand four hundred and sixty two days. I don't count the hours or minutes though.

That would just drive me insane.


	6. Chapter 6

I'm deposited at the entrance to vault 101, funny how I always start here. I don't believe in rebirth, I'm not religious, I'm just not built that way but I am starting my journey again.

I don't waste time, I'm up and moving across the Wasteland. I'm more than a match for any threat that I could meet out here but I'm not the sort to stay still for very long. I have a job to do.

Megaton's entrance was full of the usual noise, hustle and bustle. Traders, mercenaries, beggars and so forth. I prowled up to the gates looking left and right. So many people. I really fucking hate people.

I skipped across the archway without even looking. Braham moan in alarm, traders curse at me. I stopped in front of one fucker in his caravan who thought shouting at me would frighten me. I stared right at him, he got nervous, looked the other way, took his hands off the reigns and checked his bodyguard wasn't aiming anything at me. Prick, as if I'd waste my time with him anyway.

I continued through the entrance, past Lucas Simm's house, down the hill towards the atom bomb. There was purpose in my stride, I could see people looking at me, crossing to the other side of the street to get away from me. They could sense danger, even the most stupid of them. I went up a street passed the hospital and onto the outer circular walkway, past that hideous new building opposite Moriarty's Saloon. What were they thinking when they built it?

Through the lane and out on to the promenade overlooking a burnt out crater that was once the Stahl's club. I didn't know exactly where I was going, just following my nose, I suppose. Further down I paused to look in the window of Moria's, a delicate little guy with a silk scarf around his neck was dressing the window, he looked petrified, even though there was glass between us. I continued off the promenade down the hill back towards the bomb, it was busy but nobody got in my way.

Half-way down, outside the Church of Atom, I could see Gob working under Moriarty's Saloon, retrieving dead mole-rats from traps laid in the foundations. He came towards me. These ghouls really don't know fear, even when they're not feral. Big mistake. He was still carrying the carcasses of the mole-rats. What was I supposed to do? As he got near me I suddenly made a grab for them, ripping them from Gob's arms and then devoured them in a mess of blood and guts and crunching bone. A Mother with her young daughter screamed in disgust and then she started to wail. I looked at the mother and she shut up as I ate the feet of the vermin, the last remaining parts.

I moved to the archway again, there's nothing for me here. Perhaps I'll find what I'm looking for in the Wasteland somewhere.

As I spat out some gristle and made to keep going down the street I felt a hand on my shoulder. I span around, ready to snap but I knew the scent.

"You bad boy, Dogmeat", said Moriarty, "You've been told not to go wandering around town."

I shrugged my big shoulders. What's a dog to do?

The only companion I care about is out there without me. It may take another 15 years but I will find him.

I will.

The End.


End file.
